My journey to financial independence and early retirement

How my wife ruined my (working) life!

Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, here’s my number, let’s get married.

This is really where my journey starts. I met my beautiful wife in July 2014 and instantly knew she was the one for me!. I was working overseas at that time so our engagement was VERY long distance. After proposing to her a week after we met, we decided to get married in December 2014. (“well that escalated quickly!”….yes I know….I finally met someone I couldn’t live without). A few months before the wedding my dad passed away and with the stresses of the funeral and planning for the upcoming wedding, I decided to take a leave of absence from my job. The glorious day came in December 2014 when we said “I do” and we tied the knot! We had a great time on our honeymoon ( a cruise out of Galveston) and shortly after coming back I realized my wife had to go back to work and I had to go out and find some work!

On our honeymoon in Belize at the top of the Mayan ruins

I found my WHY

After a couple months of interviews and applications I started work as an engineer at a company in the Waco,TX area. So every day me and my wife would both get up, I would have a cup of coffee and we’d go to work, nothing special. It wasn’t till my wife finished her commitment in the U.S. Army did I realize that I was absolutely miserable leaving her every day. For the first time in my life I realized that I wanted to just be with her more than anything else. My quest began quickly as I scoured the interwebs searching “early retirement” and “financial independence”, trying to find a way that I could stop the rat race and “retire” early. It was at that moment that I came to the understanding that the only way to become financially independent is to have enough sources of passive income that cover our expenses that we don’t have to go to work everyday, and can spend time doing our hobbies and things we love to do (like spending time with our pups).

So, in a nutshell, that’s how my wife ruined my working life, making me realize that I want to be financially independent and I want to have options in how I spend my time and options in the way we make a living.